


Behind Veil and Under Sea

by SerStolas



Series: Rebelcaptain Selkie AUs [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Bastardization of Fae lore, F/M, I went and wrote another Selkie Fic, Other types of Fae creatures, Selkies, Technology vs magic themes, faerie - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-28 17:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21140309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SerStolas/pseuds/SerStolas
Summary: Jyn is a human woman whose spent the past few years helping to protect the fae and their humans supporters against those humans who would kill them and stamp them out, or enslave the fae for their own purposes.  Times are changing and the fae have chosen to hide under the veil of Faerie.  Will Jyn stay in the ever modernizing and industrialized human world, or join her friends in the fae realm?





	Behind Veil and Under Sea

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Star Wars.  
This song is partially inspired by the Maiden and the Selkie by Heather Dale  
I went and really bastardized fae lore for this story.  
Why did I go and write another selkie story?  
Yes I summarize the backstory of this story fairly quickly at the beginning. Make of it what you wish. I'd love to write more of the backstory and may, but sadly don't have as much time for writing these days :/

If you'd asked Jyn six years ago if she'd risk her life to rescue any kind of fae and be willing to deal with magic in general, she'd have looked at you as if you were crazy. Six years ago, all Jyn Erso cared about was survival in an ever modernizing and industrialized world that looked down on most hints of magic unless it could be exploited for human control and need or desire. While her father, Galen Erso, was a well known and respected scientist, if perhaps too soft on his views of magic, her mother Lyra Erso had supposedly been a witch, though Jyn did not recall actually ever seeing her mother perform any sort of magic in her eight years of life. 

At least that is what she'd thought six years ago. When a few odd happenings had occurred with machines breaking down and too much rain for a good planting in the village she'd lived in, whispers of Jyn being a witch's daughter had spread about the village, and the accusations had started. She recalled Krennic's men taking her into custody, claiming it was for "her own safety." She'd hated Krennic for years after he'd forced her father to leave the village to work on projects for Emperor Sheev.

Technology and science weren't evil, but using them to the determent of people and nature itself was. That was one thing her mother had drilled into her head since birth, and with her fingers curled around the crystal necklace her mother had given her days before Lyra had been killed. She'd clung to those thoughts as she and other prisoners, some political, others just guilty of not having enough money to pay King Sheev's ever increasing taxes, were transported in an ugly iron cage of a wagon towards some work prison that the Emperor and his Lord Vader had created.

Then, six years ago, Jyn's iron prison had been stopped on the road human looking men and one of the magic infused Imperial automatons, one of the few uses of magic the Imperials had use for. Amazingly, it turned out that these men weren't actually Imperials, but a fae man, his freed automaton, and a human helping the fae. They'd been looking for her, of all people, to see if she knew anything about a supposed weapon her father had been forced to design for the Imperials that would wipe out magic wherever it was deployed.

The weapon turned out to be more of a thing of complete destruction rather than just something to destroy magic, as it had been deployed on the home city of the rightful ruler, daughter of Queen Padme and ward of Bail Organa, Leia Organa. 

There were rumors too that Queen Padme had not been entirely human, and neither were her children, which lead to her death and the separation of her twins.

The quest for information on the weapon had ended in the deaths of Galen Erso and Orson Krennic both, but amazingly, Jyn, the fae man Cassian Andor, his human companion Bodhi Rook, and two other fae Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus, had survived the detonation of the weapon, along with a few other of the pro-magic forces that had fought with them. The automaton, nicknamed Kay by Cassian, had sadly been destroyed by the blast the weapon created.

Jyn knew that would haunt Cassian all his long-lived fae days.

She shook her head to clear it, bringing herself back to the present. She'd begun working against the Imperials after that, seeking to put Princess Leia back on the throne. Just six months ago, they'd managed an uneasy peace, with Leia on the throne and her twin brother Luke serving as her adviser. It should have been a great victory, and it should have allowed many to sigh in relief.

But some of the anti-fae sentiment remained even after the war. People seemed more open to the idea of magic, but there were still many who felt it should be controlled by humans, who outnumbered the fae by a large percentage. There were still some who sought to perhaps exploit the fae. That lead Jyn to her current dilemma. 

There were witches and others who practiced more openly know, but the general state of things had left the fae nervous. While some were particularly attached to the human world and would stay no matter what, many others now considered passing under the Veil, and returning to Faerie proper. The veil between Faerie and the human world right now hung open, and passing between one world and the other wasn't difficult. It hadn't always been that way, though, and for their own safety, most of the fae were considering strengthening the veil, changing it so that it would only open to the human world at certain times of the year and certain times of day. 

Baze and Chirrut had already expressed their desire to return to Faerie, and Bodhi, while human, had decided to go with them. By choosing to willingly enter Faerie, Bodhi's life would be radically alters, and passing fully through the veil and remaining in Faerie had the potential to change his body as well. Old tales of humans remaining in Faerie indicated longer lives and other such changes.

Cassian was on the fence about his choice. There weren't as many selkies left after the war as some of the other fae like the Sidhe. Selkies had a glaring weakness other fae did not, their seal skins, and how much of their magic and lives were tied to those seal skins. The more Jyn had learned of Cassian, fairy tales of selkie brides and grooms marrying human spouses, unknowingly living with the human spouse that stole and hid their skin, then returned to the sea and Faerie after the selkie rediscovered their seal skin made so much more sense. Cassian had guarded that skin with all his might, and even the half fae General Draven had never threatened Cassian in reference to the skin.

The Sidhe Mon Mothma was one of those leading the fae back into Faerie, and Jyn knew that Cassian had worked with her for a very long time.

Cassian had offered to stay here with Jyn, in the human world, carefully hiding his skin away where only he and Jyn would know where it was, and live as her human husband for the rest of his days. Jyn knew, though, that to do so would deny Cassian part of his very soul. She had no family left here in the human world with her father and mother gone, and even her adoptive father Saw dead. Nothing kept her from following Cassian into Faerie. That decision she made easily. Still, something troubled her. Still, some part of her wanted more. Baze and Chirrut once told Jyn that a Selkie in love would always be torn between two things, their lover and the sea. Faerie had its own seas that Cassian could swim in, while Jyn remained on the Faerie shore, but she'd seen his longing look towards the water when he'd spent too many weeks on land. 

They'd spent days and even months apart during the six years of war. She could and would follow him to Faerie, but she knew from speaking the Baze and Chirrut, and Cassian's own honest admissions, that there would still be days and weeks apart even in Faerie when his sea-longing would require him to seek the water.

She wanted more than that. She'd made her decision, and for a woman who'd lost so much in her life, Jyn now did not wish to be separated from her beloved Seal Lord. Cassian couldn't request the call of the sea, even in Faerie, and as she was, Jyn couldn't join him in the sea because she'd drown. Baze and Chirrut, even Mon Mothma, knew of no way that Cassian would be able to resist the sea's call, but Chirrut had remembered an old woman who lived in a home on the cliffs, just a few villages over from where Jyn had been born. Chirrut had no doubt the woman was fae, though she'd never tell. She'd been there was long as Chirrut could remember.

Jyn pulled her wool shawl closer around her shoulders as the ocean winds wiped around her. Her eyes fixed on the top of the cliffs, she followed the rocky path upward. She'd begun this journey from Leia's ocean side capital when Cassian had returned to the sea some days before, intent on finding a solution to join her beloved before he returned to the shore, before the fae crossed over the veil between the human world and faerie one last time.

The journey to the top of the cliffs took some time, though the view was beautiful. Jyn didn't let herself pause to enjoy it though, as she might on another day, she had a mission to fulfill. Finally, an hour or two before sundown, she reached the top, and found herself staring at a large stone cottage. An old woman, wispy white hair and knowing amber eyes, met her at the cottage door. She considered Jyn for one quiet moment, her eyes seeing far deeper than the human woman before her, then, her wizened face broke into a soft smile. "Come inside and have tea with me," she told Jyn, "And we will discuss a solution to your problem."

"I'm Maz Katana," she introduced herself over lavender tea. "Its been awhile since I've had a visitor to these cliffs. Tell me what it is of the fae you seek."

"Jyn Erso," Jyn replied in kind. She looked thoughtfully at Maz and all the knowledge in the old woman's eyes, and took a leap of faith. "Chirrut Îmwe said you might be able to help me. My husband to be is a Selkie, and he will travel back to Faerie, and I will follow him. But I want more than just that, selfish as it may seem. I know he will always desire the sea as much as he desires me, and I do not seek to separate him from the sea. I seek to join him."

Maz offered Jyn a scone and sipped her tea as she considered Jyn's request. Jyn accepted the scone and drank her own tea, grateful for the warm drink after a windy and cold hike up the cliffs. Maz's eyes held a spark that Jyn had seen in other fae, and she knew Chirrut guessed right on Maz's origin. Maz, for her own reasons, seemed content here, Jyn sensed, and would not be joining the other fae in Faerie. 

Well, the human world still needed its share of magic, even if most humans would never understand that magic, and it hid away in plain sight.

As they drank their tea, Jyn and Maz spoke of incidental things, how Maz remained hidden during the war, Jyn's own work with the fae, and the weather outside. As Jyn finished her scone and a second cup of tea, Maz excused herself for a moment and went into the other room, returning with a rolled up map. Carefully, she unrolled the parchment and showed it to Jyn. "This will guide you to a hidden treasure beneath a great hawthorn tree. Dig beneath its roots, and you will find the answer to your dilemma. 

Jyn had dealt enough with fae now to know not to ask too many questions on Maz's pronouncement, or the old woman might just take the map away. Instead, she accepted it and thanked the old woman for her generosity. The only additional question she asked was, "Do you have a shovel I can use?"

"You must go and unearth it tonight," Maz told her firmly, "If you wish to have time to return to your beloved in time to join him in Faerie. You had a long journey here, and you'll have a long journey back. Come and rest a few hours, then start out tonight."

At Maz's urging, and her own senses telling her to trust this woman, Jyn allowed herself to be lead to a room with a soft bed, and slept for a few hours. Maz woke her an hour before midnight, gave her a shovel, and told her to follow the map. Jyn worried at first at seeing the cliff path in the dark, but as she stepped out of the cottage, wrapped her shawl firmly around her, and opened the map, a small blue light sprung up from the ground before her. She stared at it for a moment, recognizing a wisp when she saw one. She glanced over her shoulder at Maz, and the old woman only smiled.

"Thank you, Maz, for everything," Jyn told the old woman, then she turned, and followed the wisp.

The blue wisp glowed brightly against the wind swept night, and Jyn followed it dutifully, letting it, and the map itself, guide her down the cliff path and further inland. The further they got inland, she noted that the wisp no longer lead her, but instead provided her light to read the map and travel the direction it guided her. Two hours before dawn, she finally reached a hawthorn grove the map depicted. Examining the trees carefully, she chose the largest one, and began to dig.

The work was no harder than some tasks Jyn had performed during the war, but this task filled her with more hope that many during the war had. The wisp danced its light above her as she dug under the roots of the large hawthorn, until her shovel hit something soft, something decidedly not dirt. Leaning into the hole, Jyn pulled out a thick, soft fur, one that reminded her very much of someone she knew. A smile lit Jyn's face and she looked up at the wisp. "She really is wise, isn't she?" she murmured.

The wisp danced in agreement.

Jyn moved quickly to push dirt back into the hole, then regarded the map for a long moment where it lay under the tree, and looked questioningly at the wisp. The wisp answered by settling itself over the map, and moments of blue flame later, only ash remained. 'One way to protect a secret,' Jyn thought.

Her treasure clutched close to her chest, Jyn turned and began her journey back towards Cassian and the sea.

Two days later, she stood, barefoot in the sand, as Cassian lumbered back onto the beach in his seal form and shed his skin. His dark eyes went wide as they met her blue-green, and then a flicker of joy overtook his expression as he pulled her into his arms. "You would do this, for me?"

Jyn laughed. "Already told you I'd follow you into Faerie. Why wouldn't I follow you into the sea?"

She donned the seal skin she'd unearthed beneath the hawthorn tree, and Cassian donned his own. Together, the two seals slipped into the sea for their first swim together. 

The migration of the fae back into Faerie went as quickly and as slowly as Jyn expected. Some part of her might miss the human world, but now she knew where she belonged.

A day after their crossing the veil, as Bodhi, Baze, and Chirrut sat on the Faerie shoreline reveling in the feel of faerie's magic along their skin, just before Jyn and Cassian donned their seal coats once again, Cassian pulled her into his arms and smiled. With a press of his lips to hers, he said, "Welcome home, my love."

"With you, I will always be home," she replied.

The the two seals slipped into Faerie's sea.


End file.
